The cemetery in my city is very old. The trees were barely twigs when city gardeners planted them, young, green and fragile. Not all of them lived, but the surviving trees reach high into the sky, with branches perfectly angled for climbing and sitting and thinking. In the afternoon sun, the shadows are odd, distorted shapes of trees melting and stretching in the summer heat, cooling a perfect carpet of green, lush lawn. Even the veteran’s memorial is faded and scraped from generations of children climbing in and over and around it. It is quiet and peaceful here, like a park. But the stones would not be found in a park, and the stones are where the stories are.
The stones are gray and white and tan. An obelisk stands tall and straight here, an arched stone leans slightly there. Newer stones lie flush with the ground. Behind the path, very old stones stand together, chipped and cracked, their corners worn smooth and rounded.
The stones only give the smallest details—names and dates, sometimes relationships—but entire lives are in those sparse facts. One very old stone is a love story; “John Owen, May 1800 – July 1890. Martha Owen, August 1802 – February 1891.” They were together all their lives, and even death didn’t separate them for long. Another stone is a tragedy; “Baby Boy Widston, January 5, 1910. Baby Boy Widston, April 7, 1911. Carol Widston, August 23, 1912.” Above those babies, “Alice Hope Widston, December 12, 1890 – August 23, 1912,” a mother who wanted babies, and lost babies, and lost her life for her youngest, a daughter, who died the day she was born.
Near the gardener’s shed, and old man sits in the grass. His cane snuggles into the grass; it will be here a long time today. The sun is warm and friendly on the man’s stooped shoulders, and the grass is soft and inviting. He is talking softly to—to whom? No one is beside him. No one can hear him. But the stone under his hand tells his story, too. “Robert Taylor, April 14, 1925 - . Gretchen Taylor, June 17, 1926 – October 5, 2005.” Robert is sitting on the grass carpet talking to his wife, just as he used to sit on the living room carpet when they were young and hoping to grow old together.
A stone angel child sits on a stone bench that is too big. His chubby angel feet dangle, his small wings are folded flat against his back, and his chin rests on one dimpled stone hand. In the shifting shadows, he sighs and blinks his eyes. He watches over a flat stone; “Francesca Roncalli, April 30, 1987 – August 7, 1988.” Francesca would like the angel, would touch the wings, pretending she could fly.
In one corner is an empty space where there is no stone yet. The smell of cut flowers is overwhelming, there are so many of them. A rectangle of new grass puts down roots under the dying flowers. Soon, someone (a mother? husband? daughter?) will choose a stone to rest at one end of the rectangle, and a new story will be added to the cemetery. It will be a sad story. All the stories here are sad at first, but healing comes in the telling.
The sun stays up late in the summer, but it must sink sometime. The shadows lengthen, and bleed together. The air cools and the grass is too cold for comfort. The old man struggles to his feet, and he and the cane limp across the lawn to an old sedan. The flowers fade to grey in the dusk, their heads drooping, their scents carried off in the wind. The tiny angel sits still, gray, forlorn, alone until the morning brings new visitors to touch the stones and read the stories.
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